COWRIE December Voted Workers Month

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On Labour day, Nigeria joins the rest of the world to celebrate the dignity of labour and then take it one step further in December! Most Nigerian workers have the peculiar privilege of being celebrated, courted and feted more than once a year. The date for this sector-specific workers week/month/quarterly celebration is not always known in advance, as the powers-that-be like to leave that bit of information as a surprise to the average Nigerian. Nonetheless, willingly or not, we all must join in to crown workers in one sector the honorary Kings/Queens for the season in the month of December. Bankers tend to have their own national know-the-value-of-your-banker week close to the annual year-end festivities. This is the time of the year when EVERYONE has a compulsive urge to own a wad of mint-condition notes. To access this rare commodity, the banking and non-banking public court every banker they know – Bank security staff who are usually indifferent year-round eat humble pie and run all manner of errands for their teller-manning colleagues in the hope that they also can exchange their Christmas salaries/bonuses for mint notes, oftentimes making the exchange at ridiculous rates. In this season, it becomes taboo to leave the bank with regular, worn notes. Customers who would usually insult bank Tellers for issuing them any notes other than the highest denominations suddenly beg and scramble for mint notes in ANY denomination, leaving the bank saddled with their GMGs (Ghana-must-go bags* See article on GMG bags in the Culture/Tongues section) full of bundles of N20 notes they would usually never touch.

Written by Lola Balola